


in Just-Spring

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Humor, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-01
Updated: 2007-05-01
Packaged: 2019-01-19 20:32:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12417621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: Lily wants nothing to do with James Potter OR his unimaginative presents. Sirius, Remus and Peter, posing as a not-so-secret admirer, try to convince her to do otherwise. Pure fluff. James/Lily.





	in Just-Spring

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

James is a romantic. Regrettably, James also has no imagination, as his three best friends--whom he cursed with lasting nicknames--could swear. 

Lily swears she'll kick James from Hogwarts to Halifax if he gives her another hundred crimson roses, or a daisy allegedly from a mountaintop. And she's informed him that she can buy her own Honeydukes' Deluxe Chocolate, thank you.

James, pretending that he isn't confused about what to give Lily, goes off for a private sulk.

As soon as he leaves, his three friends exchange conspiratorial glances. 

Time to fix this mess. 

Otherwise, spring will be hell. 

*** 

One rainy Saturday in March, Lily gets a flower letter. She knows this, because the note that comes with the bouquet tells her so, in a voice disguised by enchantment.

An Easter lily-- _purity and nobility_. Spring crocus-- _youthful gladness_. Moss-- _true love_. And she laughs when she sees the night-blooming cereus, which the note says means "beauty." 

Lily will never know that Sirius accidentally muddled the definitions: that moss means "maternal love," that an Easter lily means "self-sacrifice," that a cereus signifies beauty that dies quickly--and that the other name for a cereus blossom is "Fragrance of Ghosts." 

*** 

Remus attempts a vast assortment of gifts.

For a while, Lily is fairly drowning in sonnets, ballads and odes to a certain red-haired nymph who guards the Pierian spring of the Muses. All are deeply sincere, structurally impeccable, and very, very bad. The language isn't so much purple as it is ultraviolet.

Lily buries her head in her hands. They _mean_ well, God help them. They're trying, in the most romantic way possible--that is to say, the corniest--to convince Lily that all the gifts are from James.

She's not sure why they think she'll believe that. 

Idiot boys. 

*** 

Peter, Lily discovers, sends the least romantic gifts. No flower letters, chocolate or love poetry for him. 

His presents are odd, and a bit Muggle-ish. A figurine of a smiling bright green spring peeper playing a banjo arrives on a day that she's feeling down. When she complains, after five straight days of rain, that there's absolutely nothing in Hogwarts, nothing in all of _Scotland_ that's even vaguely spring-related, he sends her a Slinky.

Some years later, she realises Peter was the one who gave her things that he thought would make her laugh.

The only one of the four. 

*** 

"I don't know what I'm going to do!" Lily moans to her roommate, Alice Talbot. "It's bad enough having Potter try to court me. With the other three trying to help him, it becomes impossible. I never know what they're going to spring on me next!"

"What does Potter think about what his friends are doing?"

"Oh, that's the maddening part of it. He doesn't know. He thinks I've got a secret admirer I'm besotted with. He's being horribly chivalrous about it. I don't know whether to kick him or kill him!"

"You could try kissing him, instead."

Lily blinks. 

*** 

Faced with the possibility that Lily has found someone she likes, and that this some one is not him, James looks ill, even haunted. 

Lily feels somewhat guilty. All this sprang up, she reminds herself, because of James's endless game of "The Mad Pursuit of Lily."

Only it's not a game for either of them any more, and when did THAT happen?

She plans what to do and what to say. She rehearses a thousand coldly brilliant speeches designed to let James know that she cares for him...albeit in a mild way.

Can't have him getting proud. Or arrogant. 

Right? 

*** 

It rained yesterday. Lily has fled the castle, for dampness has seeped into the stone, and it's sunny outside. Once she's outdoors, however, she discovers that Cummings was right--spring is "puddle-wonderful." Soon, her robes are mud-soaked. She looks like a chocolate bunny that's melted.

Of course, that's when James appears. Flying.

Silently, he pulls her onto his broom. 

"Thanks, James," she whispers.

Lily never recites the speeches she'd rehearsed. Once they're aloft, James begins talking awkwardly about her admirer, seems to be a good person, hope you'll be happy... 

He'd continue speaking--but her lips get in the way. 

*** 


End file.
